I have a long list of ideas. Why have I chosen OSTD? Well – it had to be something I was passionate about, and I am always proud to tell people that my software is translated into 40 languages. I would love to be able to say that with my help hundreds of other software was also translated into many languages.

Then I needed to make a balance between time/patience/skills required and those available. I know what I can do and I know what I can learn but how much time and patience I will have is a more complicated question.

To help me with that I made a list of use cases, which I’ll call ‘features’. With my understanding of the technology – given the list of use cases I could figure out whether this is doable in reasonable time. The feature list also helps when choosing what to do next and how to structure a database.

An overarching concern is – will people be interested in using this service? That question is just as relevant whether it’s an open source project or a commercial venture. I coulnd’t see the answer, so I had to take a leap of faith before finally deciding to go ahead. After all, if it were obvious that it would be a success, then someone would have probably done it already. I’m hoping that a leap of faith is necessary when taking on something new and exciting :)